Christ The King

 

Although his time on earth was short, Jesus created quite a stir during his even briefer ministry (Luke 23:33-43). As a revolutionary he upset Jewish law, tradition and the Roman hierarchy. He consorted with the most unlikely disenfranchised, despised members of society and violated conventional tradition. He upset the “purity code” by proclaiming that it wasn’t what went into your mouth that mattered but what came out. He wasn’t a priest, or a prophet. He performed many miracles that included healing the sick and bringing the dead back to life. Yet he was "unable" to save himself and was executed with 2 petty criminals. And to compound the indignity, the soldiers knelt at his feet, not to worship, but to gamble for his clothes, while deriding his reign as “king of the Jews.” It amused them because they were Romans and they knew what a real king looked like, and this definitely was not it. A real king was arrogant and had power. So they mocked him.  

Yet, for some reason, one of the two thieves also being executed alongside Jesus, reprimands the other who scorned Jesus’ weakness and and takes pity on the condemned man. After which he asks Jesus to "remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Now, where did that come from?  What prompted this dying man to realize that Jesus  was the Messiah and Savior... and a king? Somehow, the second thief knew that the significance of Jesus' death went beyond mortal understanding. 

We celebrate Christ the King, not because of Jesus' regal bearing, but because of his humanity; not because of his power, but because of his compassion; not because of his triumph, but because of his suffering; not because he fixes our lives, but because he shows us the way to live and how to fix our own lives.  

And what about this kingdom of God? Where is it? Richard Rohr writes that “if we go to the depths of anything, we will begin to knock upon something substantial, ‘real’ and with a timeless quality to it. We will move from the starter kit of ‘belief’ to an actual inner knowing. This is most especially true if we have ever loved deeply; accompanied someone through the mystery of dying, or stood in genuine life changing awe before mystery time or beauty. This ‘something real’ is what all the worlds’ religions were pointing to when they spoke of heaven or the kingdom of God. They were not wrong at all; their only mistake was that they pushed it off into the next world. If God’s Kingdom is later, it is because it is first of all now…In other words, heaven/ union/ love now emerge from within us much more than from a mere belief system and  as Jesus promises the Samaritan woman, “the spring within her will well up into eternal life. (John 4:14)”